Ahrefs vs. Google Search Console vs. Moz Pro

Ahrefs is a must have in the SEO toolbox. It is one of the leading tools in the industry for serious SEO research. It can do almost everything you need on the non-technical side of SEO. In my opinion, it is not great if you need a detailed technical tool that identifies errors and helps with fix suggestions. In that instance, I think there are better tools on the market. But - for content and keyword related tasks, I think it's must have.

Incentivized

It's suited for all use cases, but for big companies, the data might be crippling, so an add-on tool to analyse the data would be a good companion for GSC to solve this issue. Therefore, I think it's suited for any use case with some add-ons and companions needed for analysis.

Incentivized

Businesses looking to keep track of their web presence and utilize a tool to identify areas of opportunity. The trends tracking and competitor modeling allow businesses to be able to build an SEO strategy that they can track progress over time and fill in content gaps. This is used by our company in conjunction with our marketing automation tool and Google's web presence suite (eg. Google Analytics, Search Console, Tag Manager).

Incentivized

• I have been using this platform in my organization to develop several SEO tools to help to grow our website much.
• It has all the main features which include competitor research, keyword research, website audit, content research, and rank tracking.
• I have been using all these functions in the organization for several purposes. It provides complete information and complete performance details of the SEO.
• It provides us the detailed keyword research with volume, CPC, and other information.

Incentivized

• Google Search Console insights is a great feature which provides an overview of my top content, how my new content is performing, etc.
• It gives detailed information around backlinks - who is linking to us, how many backlinks do we have, how is the internal linking within the website, etc.
• I like the graph feature that shows how the website is performing overall in one month, three months etc. Seeing the graph can help us understand whether it is trending upward or downward and we can shift strategies accordingly.

Incentivized

• It finds relevant keywords and lets you know your chance of ranking with them.
• It helps you find content that needs work to rank better.
• It helps you improve any technical issues with your web pages.
• It helps you audit your current site for any technical issues.
• It helps you keep track of your most important keywords.

Incentivized

• Can't export graphs: some graphs within the tool would be useful as an export. Unfortunately, exporting them is not an option.
• No "blanket" reporting options: though Ahrefs is excellent for gathering and exporting intel/data, there are no blanket SEO reports provided. Exporting data is great, but simple report exporting would make it better.

Incentivized

• It can be a little difficult to navigate
• More training resources would be an asset. A beginner is given the power to completely destroy a sites search results at the push of a button. Likewise it is a powerful tool to enhance search results also.
• An option to take care of multiple versions of the same site simultaneously would be helpful. An option to use the same validation script across all versions and administer them simultaneously would be a time save (i.e. non-www, www, http://, and https:// versions of the same site).

Incentivized

• Some of the auto-gen visual tables aren't all that useful for smaller companies. For instance on the Search Visibility tab, many of my clients have a tiny % of keywords in the top-10, so the table shows basically 4 overlaid flat lines. I wish we had some options to customize this table or expand the range or something.
• I wish there were some more tools relating to the technical aspects of the site/pages. The whole tool is very keyword-oriented, which is fine, but I feel like over time this has become and will continue to be less important than technical aspects, site speed, voice search, etc.
• There's an Anchor Text tab, but it only looks at Inbound links—I wish this feature was for on-site anchor text—this could be a much better optimization tool. Because there's nothing you can do about inbound link text.

Incentivized

Their index is too vast to ignore when looking at a complete backlink profile. We find links in Ahrefs that do not appear in any other link detection tool. For this reason, it's a must for our agency to use for the foreseeable future. Plus, it's very affordable considering the data you get

We've been paying monthly for Moz for at least four years. We rely heavily on it for our daily work, and would need to re-engineer many of our processes if we were to cancel our subscription. I suspect we'll continue to use Moz as long as we are in business (assuming they maintain their quality).

Ahrefs is very easy to use - you can jump right in and understand most of the assets. Overall, the dashboard snapshots give a very good picture of inbound link activity. For deeper analysis of historical trends, the system can become cumbersome, making it hard to do full work without exporting and reformatting the data.

It's easy to use, but some features are lacking a clear explanation. Somethings don't always match up. For example, the Core Web Vitals often doesn't match what you would see in the Chrome Lighthouse report or the Google Page Speed Insights tool. The tool itself is a little too basic and has to be used alongside other SEO tools and other Google properties such as Analytics

Incentivized

it's easy to use once you get the hang of it and most people with any sort of background in using online tools and analytics systems can figure it out. it's just not as intuitive as it could be like google webmaster tools or Adobe (Site Catalyst)

Every time I've ever needed it, it's been there.

Ahrefs has always been responsive when there's been a technical issue with the site. There are usually very little problems, but if there are, they announce it on their social media accounts which keeps its customers informed. Email support is prompt and the customer service people are very helpful, knowledgable and friendly.

Incentivized

As it is a free tool, you mainly have to rely on their knowledge base and forums. Google has provided in-depth guides and KB for every function of the search console. So, you can refer to it in case of any problem. You can also ask questions on their forums but direct support is not available.

Incentivized

As I have mentioned before, if you have enterprise subscription, the staff are super helpful. Moz also participated in the marketing tech conferences especially moz in seattle. These sessions are super useful in helping digital marketing analyst like me to investigate new marketing techniques, tracking leads and conversions and eventually monetize them. Their staff is not only knowledgeable in their own product but they have been around. For example Dr Peter from moz always publishes his insights and I have relied somewhat on his opinions.

Incentivized

Majestic and Ahrefs are really close in terms of tool. Ahrefs does offer competitive comparison and they do have a more up to date data base. Majestic however has a more comprehensive historical view of sites which is also extremely valuable. Majestic also offers a link velocity chart that is missing on Ahrefs. Ahrefs makes up for this with their links gained/lost calendar which Majestic is missing.

Incentivized

SEMRush is a supplementary tool we use to provide competitive analysis. While it does, or should, provide the same data that Search Console does, but I only fully trust Search Console when it comes to basic performance in Google for the sites we develop and own. SEMRush, and other products like it, does provide much more in-depth insights that can help drive business decisions, including site performance on other search engines, along putting organic and paid search performance in one spot. However, SEMRush costs money while Search Console is free.

Incentivized

Moz emerged as an industry leader with a great reputation for driving optimal SEO performance and ROI for customers. Moz' thought leadership on all things SEO gave us a lot of confidence to invest and partner with them. The wide array of product features was also something that was important to us relative to Moz' competitors. In the end, we felt there wasn't anything we couldn't do with Moz. We were also impressed with the on demand platform training and tools provided from day 1. Lastly, Moz was one of the more expensive platforms, but it wasn't the most expensive, so we felt we received great value for the overall price.

Incentivized

• Ahrefs Site Explorer has helped with any comprehensive backlink analysis and backlink profile management we've had.
• Ahrefs Site Explorer has helped tremendously in getting manual penalties lifted for certain sites.
• Aherfs Site Explorer has been helpful in identifying 404 error pages.

Incentivized

• Given that this is a free tool, the return on investment has been particularly high - we've identified and addressed a few site issues that could have meant a reduction in search traffic.
• Our organic search traffic has been on the rise in part due to the insights gained from the search traffic analytics provided within the console.

Incentivized

• Here I can easily find competitor's ranking keywords and their backlinks. It also gives you another exciting feature where you can compare two domains at the same time.
• The thing that I don't like about this software is, that sometimes your page can take too much time for crawling.

Incentivized